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December has arrived, which means different things for different people. While many of us are gearing up to slow down and spend quality time with family and friends, retail companies are bracing themselves for the clamor and chaos of the holiday season. From Black Friday to Cyber Monday to Boxing Day, this season signals a momentous time when consumers across the globe are ready and willing to spend, spend, spend.

Since most companies can anticipate a significant peak in sales during the final few months of the year, they can also anticipate a spike in customers, and in turn, a big increase in service requests. Here are a few things every retail company can do to maintain a high level of customer service and ensure that the momentum gained is maintained this festive season both in-store and online.

Last week, Fonolo hosted an insightful live discussion on the three main forms of text-based communication battling for the future of customer service: Messaging, chat, and text. The expert panel discussed the impact of messages on customer service, the importance of chat, the implications of engaging through text, and so much more! To save you some time, we’ve extracted video snippets showcasing highlights from the discussion.

“I just want to speak to a real person” has become a token phrase used by people during almost any type of automated customer service experience. Even so, gone are the days when talking to ‘a real person’ is the customer’s preference: Today, 70% of customers expect self-service options and most brands are taking note.

Customer Self Service, or CSS, is any type of electronic or automated support that allows customers to find answers or resolve problems without having to connect with a customer service or call center agent. Examples include FAQ sections on websites, help center blog forums, self-service account creation, password resetting, and interactive voice technology in call centers.

Despite the clear demand for these services, 55% of consumers find self-service portals difficult to use. So, how can these customer self-service strategies be implemented in successful ways that not only increase efficiency but also cut costs for companies? And, using self-service offerings, how can brands create happier customers who are more likely to become repeat customers (or brand evangelists)?

As usual, the press misunderstands the role of the call center, and the forces that might make it grow or sink.

The demand for real-time human-assisted help – whether by voice or text – is not primarily a result of insufficient self-service tools. There are already many ways for companies to offer self-serve interactions to their customers. Adding a new format of self-service is exciting, and potentially useful, but rarely moves the needle in the balance between self-serve and human-assisted service.

How will technology change customer service? A common answer to this question is, “Improvements in automation and self-service will erode the importance for call centers and the human agents in them.” That answer gets reinforced every time you read an announcement from a company touting success of a new automation project. It also gets strengthened by the marketing efforts of all the vendors selling self-serve technology. However, if we adjust for recency bias and profit motive, can we still be sure this trend is real? It’s a question too important for casual conclusions.

Headlines featuring “AI” and “chatbot” have dominated the discussion in the customer service space for the past year. Naturally, it’s tantalizing to imagine a world where no one needs to call a contact center, but the sizzle around AI and chatbots obscures a deeper question: How much customer support can actually be done by self-service? This question has been with us since the earliest web sites and IVRs started to offload the simplest tasks from agents. Each new wave of technology revives the dream that we can eliminate (or drastically reduce) human agents. We can see the current excitement around AI and chatbots as an extension of this long-running dream. Is it different this time? Are we reaching the promised land? Or are we chasing a receding horizon?

The IVR experience (“press 1 for this… press 2 for that…”) has long been part of the contact center. Although it serves an important purpose, it is universally detested. Many people see chatbots as a natural replacement for the core functions of the IVR.

Sorry, but I’m afraid this is going to be one of those “rain on the parade” posts. First, it’s not clear when or to what extent that will happen. Second, most of the aspects of IVRs that make them hated are likely to translate directly to chatbot form.

The impact of AI on the call center is a red hot topic these days. Unfortunately, a TON of the writing out there is not helpful and sometimes even misleading. I’m not just talking about sloppy blogs, either. Some of the worst offenders are top publications. (I’m going to take the high road and not link to any here.)

A big part of the problem is the confusing interplay between the “AI”, “chat”, and “bot” topics. All three rose to prominence – each for separate, valid reasons – contemporaneously and all three suffer from imprecise definitions. Adding to the confusion, are companies putting out vague marketing and product announcements that are sometimes a tossed salad of buzz words.

All this gets thrown into the cognitive meat grinder and what comes out is something like: “Soon Call Centers Won’t Need Agents!” Clearly there’s a lot of messy thinking, but it can be hard to figure out where the break-down is happening. I will share with you two guiding principles that help me cut through the noise. Hopefully you find them helpful too.

The recent renaissance in self-service has been driven by several factors. First, the past 20 years of online commerce have allowed us to hone the technology and techniques for making good self-service interfaces – first on the web, and then on mobile devices. The art and science of building good user experiences (UX) has become a mature profession. Second, the smartphone revolution brought that UX to everyone’s pockets. Third, the majority of today’s consumers are very comfortable with these tools and actually prefer them to human interaction. (The younger they are, the more strongly they prefer self-service, so this bodes well for the future.)

The growing popularity and effectiveness of self-service implies that its counterpart, human-assisted service, i.e. the purpose of call centers, is on the decline. Sure, there are some transactions that still require an agent, but if one extrapolates from current trends, isn’t it reasonable to assume that eventually all interactions will be self-serve? Does that mean centers are headed for obsolescence, like floppy disks and 8-track tapes? Not so fast.

Customers today don’t want to waste time and energy calling, chatting or emailing with customer service when their answers can just as easily be found using self-service. Self-service is a win-win strategy for any service organization. It allows companies to provide online support with no agent interaction, and lets customers feel empowered to find answers in their own time.

Providing self-service options to your customers is critical for delivering a top-notch customer service experience. These stats prove why self-service will be even more important in 2017.